


Oh, it's you

by hopelessbookgeek



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 14:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12389646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessbookgeek/pseuds/hopelessbookgeek
Summary: "It's too much. It's too big. It's too beautiful." Or, the five times York told Carolina he loved her, and the one time he had to tell Delta instead.





	Oh, it's you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Legendaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/gifts).



The first time York told Carolina that he loved her, the word was four letters and it started with W.

The lights in Errera were red and blue and so he didn’t realize at first that she was too, that the skirt swishing against her long legs was teal and that the hair swishing against her long neck was red, red. In homage he ordered a purple drink and in exchange she would bite a purple bruise against the pulse point at the base of his throat. But that was later.

“Come here often?” he asked, shooting her a hundred watt smile.

“Never,” she said, and she didn’t smile at all but the way she flicked her eyes at him made him breathless anyway. “But maybe I will now.”

He fiddled with a lighter someone had left at the bar, and he didn’t even smoke but it was something to do with his hands and he’d always been fidgety–

She snatched it away, just plucked it out of his hands like an eagle with a rabbit. “If you play with fire, you’re going to get burned,” she said with the faintest ghost of a smile at the edge of her mouth and he figured, with her hair bright as candle flame and her eyes glowing like nuclear fallout, that there were worse ways to die.

“What’s your name?” he asked, instead of saying that.

“Carolina,” she said, “like the state. You?”

“Elijah,” he said, “like the prophet.”

He was too much of a gentleman to drag his fingertips under the hem of her gauzy skirt while they were in the cab, since the driver was _right there_ , but after it took him the longest minute of his life to unlock his door with shaking hands there was no reason to wait. She had him pinned in half a second, her teeth to his throat.

“God,” he gasped, knees shaking. “You made me look so nervous unlocking the door, if I’m not careful I’m gonna get arrested for breaking into my own apartment. Again.”

“I’ll get that story out of you later,” she murmured against his collarbone.

When her fingers slipped under his shirt to graze his sides, he gasped again. “I want to– I want you to– I _want_ ,” he said, struggling with every syllable.

“You’re not supposed to just _want_ ,” she said.

“Well, I want to.” That made her laugh, and her laugh made him take her by the hand and lead her to the bedroom. “I want _you_. Is that good enough?”

**

The second time York told Carolina that he loved her, the word was four letters and it started with M.

The mission was supposed to be four nights, and then five; on night eight, even North noticed that York was despondent. On night thirteen the sleeplessness started; day sixteen saw him drink so much coffee that his heart was on DEFCON one all day.

Finally he bit the bullet and used the emergency line. He prayed that when– not if– he was caught, he’d be able to give a sensible-sounding explanation for why this was indeed an emergency. _Counselor, have you ever heard of Broken Heart Syndrome?_

 _“You sound awful,”_ Carolina said, and she knew how to dance on this beautiful line between concern and reproach.

“Thanks,” he said, and meant it. “I look awful, too. You’re lucky this isn’t a video call.”

_“Am I?”_

“No,” he amended. “I’m a delight.”

Her room was built like she was, neat and practical and comfortable in a stoic sort of way, with a low sturdy desk carefully strewn with papers and very regulation bedding over the finest mattress that the military could bother buying. There were no photos, no art, no personal artifacts at all; it would have been stranger if there were. York wore his heart on his sleeve and the little things that made him demonstrably him were always obvious: scars, tattoos, Mardi Gras beads he earned the usual way. Carolina was a study in internality, and kept her damage locked safely away.

She kept her room locked up too, but that was easier to get into.

Was she in armor at a post, scrolling through reports on her datapad? Was she in sweatpants sitting at the edge of her bed with her shoulders rolled forward, the way she unconsciously curled into herself out of armor? Was she sleepless too? Did she… did she think about him too?

_“You’re not supposed to call on the emergency channel unless it’s an emergency. You’re lucky I’m waiting for my ride.”_

His heart flipped and the smile he wore colored his voice warm as honey. “It was an emergency,” he said, and he knew she’d kick his ass for it but it was probably worth it. “I miss you.”

If she were in a good mood, she would have hung up on him immediately for that, so when she said _“I miss you too,”_ it meant something a lot sadder too.

**

The third time York told Carolina that he loved her, the word was seven letters and it started with B.

Late nights on the _Mother_ were as clinical and cold as anything York had ever known. He missed places where the air tasted of wood smoke, of rain, of cardamom; where summer breezes kissed his cheeks and winter winds slapped them; where spongy moss gave in to the weight of his feet and where he could leave tangible proof of his existence in sand or snow; where there were sunrises and sunsets and eclipses and light pollution and clouds.

Instead everything was cold, metal, sterile, cold, practical, ugly, _cold_. So sometimes he would sit cross-legged in front of the huge windows late at night and trace the swirling galaxies and try and find the poetry in that too. Sometimes it even made him feel better. Sometimes Carolina would sit with him.

“I don’t think I believe in God,” she said one night, very softly, after an hour of saying nothing at all. York glanced over at her but she was staring straight ahead at a constellation he couldn’t name; there was no Cassiopeia out here.

“What makes you say that?” he asked, not to push but anxious to keep hearing her talk in that tone, warm and careful.

“No one could just… _make_ that.” She touched the glass, palm flat. “It’s too much. It’s too big. It’s too beautiful.”

Oh, to hear Carolina call that miserable expanse of nothingness _beautiful_ , Carolina whose hair was the red of ripe September apples and whose eyes were new spring grass, Carolina who shone in the sun and laughed as broad as any open plain, Carolina who was everything beautiful about the world, about the living.

He hadn’t planned to say anything to that; it was both too early and too late for a conversation about theology and theogony. But Carolina turned towards him incrementally, hesitantly, and asked, “do you? Believe in God?”

Speaking of things that were too much, too big, too beautiful. The question was overwhelming in its simplicity so he sidestepped it rather elegantly and said “I believe in… you.”

“I would hope so. I’m right here.”

“No, not… I believe in the human heart. I believe in honesty, loyalty, fidelity; I believe in beauty, life, love; I believe in justice, mercy, trust. I believe that people will usually do the right thing, or at least the wrong thing for the right reasons.”

There was more to it than that, and he could have listed the specifics too: the way the crust of fresh bread cracked against his teeth, the curiosity and brightness of children asking _what, why, how_ , the way it felt to wake up next to a lover and think _oh, it’s you. Thank God. It’s you._

And it was her, truth be told. The way it felt when she brushed her lips over his temple in the mornings when she left earlier than he did, the ragged curve of her bitten fingernail when she flipped him off, the Orion’s belt of freckles at the base of her neck. It was her presence, steady as his heartbeat. It was that she talked theology with him at midnight. It was that she was here at all.

“I think you give people too much credit,” she said, back to looking out at the stars, and he knew she was already far away. “But I wish I had your faith.”

Why not? She had his everything else.

**

The fourth time York told Carolina that he loved her, the word was four letters and it started with N.

It was all supposed to get easier, they all said it, the Director said it, the medics said it, everyone, everyone. Delta himself said it would get easier, that York would adjust to a splinter personality tearing his consciousness jagged, and the headaches lessened over time but the– the rest–

When he was a kid learning to swim he would get caught up in the big waves off the bay and it took all his strength to keep his head above water, let alone moving anywhere, and this felt like that on a cosmic scale. It was the Red Queen phenomenon in perfect reproduction: run as fast as you can just to stay where you are. He couldn’t sleep longer than a few hours at the most, less if the bloody fragmented dreams started up again.

And the eye, he told everyone it didn’t bother him and on an emotional level it _didn’t_ but he was getting vertigo and his peripheral vision went to shit and that rocketed up his anxiety, which didn’t help either the sleeplessness or the vertigo. When it got that bad, Delta didn’t feel like a tool that would bring him back up to normality but yet another crutch, only an emotional one instead of physical.

One night was so bad, so bad, he hadn’t slept at all the night before and couldn’t sleep again and all the coffee made him nauseous and the anxiety made it worse, and Delta _didn’t ever stop_ and he felt so disconnected from reality that he could just–

He fumbled for his comm link. “Carolina?” he croaked. “I need you.”

And she _came_ , she said nothing but she came immediately and her cheeks were flushed like she’d run the whole way and maybe she _had_ and she cupped his face in her callused hands and that grounded him so firmly and immediately he swayed where he stood. “You’re here,” she said. “I’m here, and you’re here. Okay? Look at me, York.”

And his _name_ , the sharp round sound of the name they gave him, the pseudonym that matched her, the name that had become as real to him as the one his mother gave him, the sound of it in her mouth brought him back to himself and set his heartbeat back to regularity. “Carolina,” he said, without meaning anything by it, just to say it.

“York,” she said again in return, and he didn’t know what she meant by it at all.

**

The fifth time York told Carolina that he loved her, the word was six letters and it started with T.

“–An’ my _point_ is… is that…” York paused, tried to think, came up blank. “Carolina, what was my point?”

“Wish I knew, buddy. Walk faster, c’mon. You’re heavy.” His arm was slung over her shoulders and she was half-leading, half-carrying him to his room. “Why don’t you get drunk in _your_ room next time? So no one needs to carry your dumb ass home?”

He shook his head vehemently. “ _Because_ ,” he said like she was being a fool, “then someone would have to carry _South_ home, an’ that’s not… not…” He struggled to think of a better word than _nice_ but his mental thesaurus was out of commission. “Not _gentlemanly_.”

“North would have carried her. He did on shore leave, remember? Hell, North would carry _you_ home very willingly. You don’t have to call me every time.” But she didn’t sound angry, and when he focused his bleary eye on her face, the smile lines around her eyes were all crinkled up. He smiled to see them; Carolina’s smile was like a yawn, in that it provoked an unavoidable mirror neuron response.

He missed what she said next because he was trying to remember how to spell _neuron._

Finally they reached his room and she dumped him gently but inelegantly on his bunk. “Stay,” she ordered, and it didn’t occur to him to disobey. She left and returned with a glass of water and two Advil and commanded him to take it all in, that it would make him feel better in the morning. Delta probably would’ve given him the same advice if York hadn’t had him log off for the night. Could Delta get drunk?

“You’re lucky you have me,” she said, and he wouldn’t have argued even if he felt he could hold his own in an argument at all.

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks. For… everything.”

“You don’t really need to thank me. I’m your CO and your friend, it’s kind of in my job description.”

“I _know_ ,” he said. “And thanks.”

**

The last time York told Carolina that he loved her, the word was four letters and it started with L, and Carolina wasn’t there so he had to tell Delta instead.

“ _What would you have told her, York?”_

He hated these stupid journal entries. He wasn’t ever going to listen to them again, wasn’t going to send them anywhere, didn’t want to save them. But Delta thought documentation was important, and he thought Delta was important, so it was the tradeoff he agreed upon.

Still, they were easier when they were catharsis. It was easier to talk to Delta than no one at all. “I would have told her…” God, there was so much he should have told her. “That I understand why she did what she did. I just wish she hadn’t.” But then, there was so much he wanted to apologize for too, so much he could have done, should have done. Had there been a way to make it right, at the time? Was there something he could have said or done that would have made her listen, understand?

“I wish she could’ve learned to let things go. I guess I should too.” After all, she was gone; if not dead, then somewhere else, somewhere he hadn’t found her. And he could, he could try, he could scour the galaxy asking anyone who spoke his language, _have you seen a soldier in expensive armor, teal-seafoam-blue-green? Have you seen a redhead with piercing green eyes? Have you seen a woman who laughed like the world was ending?_

But he’d read the files. He knew about Allison. He couldn’t do that to himself, or to Carolina.

“I should’ve told her I loved her,” he mumbled to Delta late that night, when he was sprawled on the floor of an empty house. “That’s what I should’ve told her. _Carolina, I love you._ ” It wasn’t very poetic, but it was true, and that would matter more to her.

_“I am sure she knew how you felt, even if you never said it in so many words.”_

There was no way Delta could know that, no way he could even really understand it; but he was trying to be kind, and more and more these days York felt too sad to be kind so he appreciated it.

“Thanks, D. I hope so.” He yawned, so wide his jaw cracked. “I’m probably gonna have to break into that place downtown tomorrow. The one I scouted out yesterday? Security looks pretty minimal. And if anyone catches me I’ll just tell ‘em it’s my place and I locked myself out.”


End file.
